As an expert in diseased English, which is bureaucratic jargonese calculated to confuse people who can only understand plain English, may I translate this for the ordinary OLO reader?

Gems Church is using flowery language to disguise the fact that indigenous education is a very expensive farce, where one should not expect that indigenous students are ever going to attain parity with every other student in the education system. One suspects that Gems is perfectly aware that aboriginal children are non too bright and they don't care if they are educated anyway. And they won't go to school unless you drag them along, kicking and screaming.

This is a real problem for the public service bureaucrats who's job it is to educate aboriginal children, and since it is the legally above reproach that aborigines are as intelligent as everyone else, then these children should be able to attain the same marks as every other student. Especially since the educators know that it costs three times as much to educate a remote area aboriginal child as other children, and the only thing that this wasted money achieves, is a safe job and a secure profession for the educators.

The Education department's solution, is to provide "indigenous" students with an "indigenous education" which will hopefully make school so fun and attractive for them so that they will bother to attend. This "indigenous education" will make certain that they are happy, fed and culturally aware, its just that they won't be able to read, write, spell, or do sums at anywhere near the same level as the rest of the student body.

So Gems has to prime us for abject failure, while at the same time telling us that we should keep bankrolling failure. She leaves off with a threat that Australia might be breaking the infamous Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, if we don't keep coming up with the cash. This Declaration basically says that every indigenous person is equal with everyone else in society when it benefits them, and more equal with everyone else when it does not.

Well said *LEGO*

I would point out in addition that guvments across this country continue to show contempt for proper legal process when it comes to that obtaining of "informed legal consent" by refusing to provide appropriate interpreters for explanations and refusing to provide translated documents, as and when legally required.

The only appropriate course of action is to return to the Original Australians their Sovereignty, their own places etc etc to do things their own way.

Whilst the current generation of ugly Australians are not directly responsible for the variety of genocidal campaigns of the past, the rape, the pillage, the wholesale slaughter, theft of property, theft of babies and children, the poisoning of water sources and the "gifting" of diseased blankets, you are all largely responsible for voting for foul individuals who maintain the results of this, and the dumping of these people at the bottom of the economy.

Largely, the Original Australians reject you, and so do I.

In a so called multicultural country, why are our schools not full of talented, bi and multi lingual teachers?

The biggest problem with the education system in this country is the small minded, dim witted twits making the decisions and the solution to that simply requires the "axe" not buckets of money.

Errrrrr, I don't think you read all of my post, Mr Dreamon. (That is a singularly appropriate name).

Do you have comprehension problems? Well, I guess that it what a "progressive" education system results in.

Lego - education in Australia is very eurocentric - it centres non-Indigenous British based knowledge as the only true path.

That may be fine if it was promoted honestly as 'this is education so people can fit and function in mainstream Anglo society'. However, entry and acceptance into mainstream society is not that simple as your somewhat rambling patronising post shows. It is conditional for those from outside of that culture - conditional by all and sundry who feel it is their god-given right to decide who is or isn't acceptable.

Lego, if you are such a learned soul, perhaps you can answer why it is that when Indigenous people gain the highest academic standards available they are unlikely to gain recognition, or employment in our learned halls of higher education?

Education as the panacea for improving Indigenous people's life circumstances is simply a colonialists myth because of the underlying erroneous belief that Indigenous people are less competent than non-Indigenous folk.

Racism continues to the alarming fall in employment of Indigenous academics in our universities. Universities seemingly preferring anyone else rather than an Indigenous academic.

Racism continues to enable clowns to assert that they are some sort of expert on Indigenous people and issues, handing down grandiose edicts that are unfounded and ill-informed. The funny part of it is that these clowns don't realise how foolish they really are.

Decades of self determination brought down the black curtain that shielded such dreadful goings-on as the abuse of women and children to flourish out of sight and out of mind. As well, aboriginal children grew up functionally illiterate in English through idiotic multicultural policy that preferred local languages to English.

The author could refer to the many reports paid for by taxpayers over many years, including reports by the government's own auditor, the Australian National Audit Office that detail over years the waste and lack of accountability.

in Regional Wa the indigeneous kids that do the best seem to be the good sportsmen and women. Problem is at the end of the day only a very small percentage are going to make a living from it along with a small percentage making a living out of dot paintings.

Character rather than education is really the issue. The ability to turn up for work, see past tribalism and rid oneself of the victim mentality would see far more gainfully employed than more millions being spent on 'indigeneous' education.